Shah Alam is still flooding despite millions spent. Why?

Noticed something in the air lately? Like say… rain? (Like say lots of rain?) Well, if you hadn’t realised yet, Malaysia is going through our biannual monsoon season and you know what that means–hello, floods! 😩

Considering how frequently it happens, you’d expect us to be ready for it when it hits, right? But while we can blame our floods on crazy heavy rains, high tides and climate change–all of which are beyond our control, the fact of the matter is, overdevelopment and some pretty iffy city planning have made the situation worse. Case in point: the 2021-2022 Shah Alam floods.

For those of you who don’t remember, let’s just say it was bad bad. With water levels soaring up to 4 meters, there were also landslides, power outages and sadly, casualties. But what really made the Shah Alam floods infamous was the legal aftermath. Residents in Taman Sri Muda–one of the worst hit areas–went all the way to court to sue several government bodies, citing reasons such as inept flood management systems.

Since then, the government has been raising the fund of their flood mitigation projects from RM60 million, to RM1.1 billion, to a staggering RM15 billion! So we thought we might as well take a closer look at their investments to see if Shah Alam is better prepared for the next round of floods. But that turned out to be a bigger challenge than we anticipated since…

The government ignored our questions on the Shah Alam flood projects

So, some good news first. We did end up finding a very thorough flood mitigation plan drawn up by the Shah Alam City Council (MBSA). It’s divided into two parts, the first one running from July 2022 to February 2023. And the second one running from January 2023 to January 2024. It tackles areas by the rivers they are closest to and includes stuff like widening drains, installing water pumps, building flood walls and upgrading retention ponds.

But before you clap your hands and shout hurrah–just know that there’s no way to know if these projects have actually been completed. Yeah, they left out that part. And trust us, we tried our best to get in touch (via phone, text and email no less) with as many government bodies as possible to clear things up, including the:

1. National Disaster Management Agency (NADMA)
2. Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID)
3. Shah Alam City Council (MBSA)

Anddddddddd…. they all ignored us. At this point, are we even surprised? 🤷🏻‍♀️

But we couldn’t just leave you guys floating (heh), so we dug deeper and pieced together bits of news to see how well the government has done their jobs in the hardest hit areas of Shah Alam, specifically in Section 25, Section 13, Section U1 and Section U20. Just keep in mind though that we could only include the stuff that was reported on, so take this list with several grains of salt.

Area #1 – Section 25

You might not know Section 25, but Taman Sri Muda would certainly ring a bell—it’s right there in Section 25 of Shah Alam. And get this, even the former Selangor MB, Dr. Mohamad Khir Toyo, has admitted that the taman has been excessively developed, which was what led to the floods.

“From my experience, Taman Sri Muda is overdeveloped and does not have proper planning…as well as having improper monsoon drains,” — Dr Mohd Khir Toyo, ex-Selangor MB via The Vibes

Welp, can’t cry over the muddy stains of spilt floodwater now. But it may please you to know what the government has in store for Section 25, as well as the measures they’ve carried out (marked with ✅):

1. Improve the sewerage system
2. Build a flood retention wall
3. Build a pump house ✅
4. Upgrade and repair the internal drainage ✅, sewerage and related infrastructure
5. Fix and widen the drains ✅–ongoing (Phase 2)

Projects completed: 3-ish/5

Area #2 – Section 13

Section 13 so happens to be near the Shah Alam stadium, which you may recognise as that one place that’s always being hit by flash floods. And there were apparently plans as far back as 2019 to tackle these floods (which evidently didn’t work).

More recently, MBSA came up with these new measures:

1. Upgrade the pump house ✅
2. Fix and widen the drains
3. Improve the sewerage system

The water pumps were upgraded in May this year, but 3 months later in August, Section 13 flooded. Now hold your horses–it had nothing to do with the pumps. Instead, there was a flap gate up the line choked with rubbish that caused the river to overflow. And how did the rubbish get there, you may ask? Well, it turns out a developer had neglected to install a silt trap at their construction site. They were slapped with a fine and all was done and dusted…

… until Section 13 flooded again in November :/

Projects completed : 1/3

Area #3 – Section U1

Back when the big floods hit in 2021/2022, Taman Mesra in Section U1 was struck hard. And that’s likely because Sungai Damansara also runs through this area. According to locals, the floods are usually a result of backflow from smaller drains around U1 and the river itself.

1. Build a new water pump
2. Upgrade pumps and related infrastructure
3. Fix and widen the drains

We can’t confirm if the measures were implemented, but we did come across this interesting report of a sports complex being illegally constructed in Taman Mesra last year. It was halted once MBSA caught wind of it, but by then the developers had already built ‘over-ground’ drains, which would essentially turn the taman into a retention pond.

As of now, it’s unclear if the drains were removed, but it would definitely hinder any developments at Section U1 if they’re still there.

Projects completed: 0/3

Area #4 – Section U20

Like Taman Sri Muda, Section 13 and Taman Mesra, Bandar Baru Sungai Buloh from Section U20 was also identified as one of the worst hit areas of the Shah Alam floods.

So far, these are the projects the local council has carried out:

1. Build and fix drains
2. Upgrade the retention pond
3. Replace the sewerage system

Unfortunately, there’s no mention in news reports on the completion of any of these projects, nor has there been reports on floods happening.

Projects completed: 0/3

Well, after tallying up the completed projects, it’s clear that some measures have been taken to prevent major flooding in these hard-hit areas. But if we fast forward to today…

Floods are still happening in Shah Alam, despite millions spent on the projects

Okay, let’s be real here–our data set is missing some key pieces since we can only rely on reported news, so it wouldn’t be fair to jump to conclusions about whether the government has actually delivered on their promised projects. If they did, then credit where credit’s due.

But there’s still a question of how effective these measures are. Take Section 13 for example. If the projects were genuinely completed on time, then why was it flooded just two weeks back?

On another note, it’s kinda worrying that the public isn’t getting much info on the flood projects. And we’re not talking about that cramped masterplan from MBSA. Because if you really think about it, the plan alone is not useful to someone who’s actually living in a flood-prone area. Imagine, every time it pours, would you feel safer knowing what the government planned to do, or what the government has done?

At the end of the day, this article is completely unreliable. Without a reliable way to get updates (or even a hold of them), we can only guess what the authorities have done. If we guessed wrongly, we risk editing this article and including an apology. But if the people living in the flood-affected areas guess wrongly, they risk having their entire lives swept away. Again.